And yet, we have Pilger’s testimony that Venezuela is not the catastrophe the global media has painted. Even more depressing is the fact that his far-right replacement, Jair Bolsonaro, is a self-confessed racist who romanticises Brazil’s military dictators in the days of yore — an unadulterated fascist.

Mr Lula, a socialist with his own characteristics, did the impossible when the World Economic Forum in Davos conferred on him the Global Statesmanship Award.John Pilger, who knows Venezuela well, considers the East Caracas elite who regard themselves as "white" as the powerful core of what the media calls "the Opposition". Ted G. These are, by Mr Bolton’s definition, "the Troika of Tyranny". He cites a journalist and filmmaker friend of his, Pablo Navarrete: "I have filmed videos of plenty of food in the markets all over Caracas — it is Friday night and the restaurants are full. It was wonderful for as long as it lasted. The oil industry was on this curve when the mantle fell on Mr Maduro. Goertzel’s book "Lula".." Moore was not the only one showering superlatives on Mr Lula.There has been so much drum beating in the media that for the United States to give up the military option would involve a loss of face. The fall of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua will complete Mr Bolton’s "Troika of Tyranny".Without the Western media tilting the story totally against President Lula, it is difficult to imagine how meekly the world acquiesced in the fall of one of history’s most popular leaders. How does the US cajole Kim Jong-un to surrender his nuclear weapons when Kim can see Washington bullying Nicolas Maduro to hand over power to America’s favoured man, Juan Guaido, so that he can protect the world’s largest reserves of oil for imperial interests?By this one act of recognising a handpicked individual, interested governments hope to dethrone a popularly elected President. He had the support of the indigenous Mestizos and Afro-Venezuelas, by far the majority.

The elite amused themselves by calling Mr Maduro "the bus driver". They were stoutly with him because they had access to a comprehensive welfare system of which he was the much-adored author. To support the sloganeering crowd is to "side with the people". This "Opposition" is now going for the regime’s jugular. Carter is on record having said: "Of the 92 elections that we have monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world. But Chavez’s Venezuela was hugely helped by high oil prices.As for the certification of fair elections anywhere, the world’s most credible outfit is the institute established by former US President Jimmy Carter. On his ascent as President, journalist and filmmaker Michael Moore wrote: "The country’s robber barons nervously checked fuel gauges in their private jets for a quick escape. One of his targets, President Lula da Silva, has already been pulverised out of action. It bears his name.

Instead, a rank fascist, Jair Bolsonaro, was preferred. But as the economy showed no signs of picking up, as oil prices showed no signs of picking up, the vested interests in their country clubs, the East Caracas elite with their palatial houses in Miami plus neighbouring countries — the US included — began to plot a change of regime, their eyes fixed on the world’s largest oil reserves. But such is the penetration of Latin American establishments by the CIA that the courts were mobilised to bar Mr Lula from contesting the 2018 presidential election. In the American media, unquantifiable election fraud has triggered a large rally against Mr Maduro." According to Moore: "What Lula wants for Brazil is what used to be called the American Dream. Once Venezuela is out of the way, the media will suddenly discover all sorts light box signs Suppliers of horrors in Nicaragua. The reason Grenada came to mind is because this island of 91,000 inhabitants is barely 90 miles north of Venezuela, the country currently in the eye of a storm.

Time magazine considered President Lula as one of the most influential leaders in recent history. Before he could embark on diversification, oil prices began to fall, and fall abysmally. Plummeting oil prices have caused hyperinflation."To some extent the seeds of Mr Maduro’s trouble lay in an exaggerated self-confidence, a sort of risky bravado with which his much more charismatic guru, Hugo Chavez, allowed the Opposition to retain their monopolies and corruption. A media totally biased against him was left untouched because Chavez could cushion the relentless media invective."Meanwhile, John Bolton, the gun-slinging national security adviser in the White House, has made no secret of his targets in Latin America — Brazil, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The reason for a delay in military action may well lie in remote Hanoi, Vietnam." He added, in parenthesis: "The US is the worst, with its emphasis on campaign funds.Mr Maduro is having to pay for Chavez’s cardinal error: while setting up a welfare state he ignored the next stage, that of deploying this vast wealth into large-scale diversification of the economy. Someone as benign as Mr Bolsonaro will soon be wheeled in. Not even Mr Maduro’s greatest supporters will claim for him the magical charisma of Chavez.

Most people have forgotten how cross Margaret Thatcher was with Ronald Reagan for having invaded Grenada to affect a regime change in 1983 without having taken her into confidence. That’s what Mr Bolsonaro is. In that case, the Yellow Vests who have been protesting all across France for over three months now must attract outside support too. When military action does bring about a change of regime, it will the 68th time that the US has affected regime change by a coup or invasion. Little wonder that he won eight elections and referendums, something of a record. Mr Obama quoted the title of Prof. President Barack Obama said of him — "this is my man right there". The distinguished professor of sociology at Rutgers University described Mr Lula as "the most popular politician on earth".

"Even customers used to say if ‘Shetty sir’ is not around let’s not proceed with anything."No one would work on SWIFT in his absence," said one of the co-workers.The auditor, who asked not to be named, said his concerns were raised to the bank’s audit committee but he was told by Punjab National executives: "Let this go this time, we will note this and take steps.Reuters called the other 16 accounting firms listed in the bank’s annual report from the 2010-11 fiscal year to the most recent."Sometimes the concurrent auditor just blindly signs whatever is given to him without verifying what is going on," the official said.Most big global banks began to connect SWIFT - originally standalone terminals like the telex machines they replaced - to their central systems in the 1990s. The prime objective of RBI’s audit should be to see that systems and procedures are there and those are functioning."The details, he said, would have been available to RBI officials through his subsequent report, but as far as he was aware no action was taken. 25, 2016 letter from the RBI listed what it described as problems that banks reported after receiving the August communication - a number of which were to show up in the Punjab National case. "It was as if they were bank employees," said one banker who still works in the currency exchange office.Last month, after the fraud was discovered, the reserve bank set a April 30 deadline for integrating banks’ internal software and SWIFT."A 100 per cent audit is specified only for high-risk areas," he said.One auditor, who inspected the branch on a quarterly basis between October 2011 and September 2012, said he raised the question of why Nirav Modi was getting so much credit.Shetty, they said, declined to show others how to operate the SWIFT system.".Audit frameworkThe framework for auditing India’s banks is set up to provide three levels of scrutiny: continuous monitoring by internal auditors, quarterly inspection by statutory auditors and an annual inspection by the RBI, according to interviews with officials at the central bank. The calls were either unanswered or met with refusal to discuss particulars of the audits.Neither man has been charged with a crime."Two of the RBI-approved statutory auditors who inspected the Mumbai branch confirmed they met Shetty in the foreign exchange room.But a former senior RBI official with direct knowledge of the central bank’s oversight of foreign exchange transactions said they often do not provide much of a backstop.Three executives with experience of the cash payments industry said this means transactions are automatically recorded and reconciled within the bank and, ideally, with counterparties.Explaining the RBI’s approach overall, he added: "We are supervisors.In some cases, the RBI said, that meant more than 1,000 people being able to log on, which "exposed the bank to heightened risk of fraudulent activities".Warning signsDocuments show that the RBI knew more than a year before the current scandal that there were warning signs about how Indian banks administered the SWIFT network.Several banks, the RBI wrote, had "no/little audit oversight on the SWIFT framework despite significant financial ramifications".A Nov."Earlier, the branches of banks were at least scared that RBI might catch any malpractice," the official said.A letter on Aug.Two co-workers described Shetty as a socially taciturn man who, after starting the work day by moisturizing his face and hands with Pond’s cream, began sipping a seemingly endless series of cups of tea and dialling up customers on his iPhone.Asked about the RBI’s annual audit, a current official who previously worked in its supervision division said the central bank has moved away from doing annual branch inspections, instead relying primarily on data from the lender’s headquarters.R Gandhi, deputy governor at the RBI from 2014 to 2017, said the statutory audit process, which is carried out by private accounting firms, was not meant to be comprehensive.

Transactions such as the letters of undertaking sent by Shetty result in credit being given to a borrower in an account known as a "nostro", which is owned by the issuing bank - in this case Punjab National - but hosted by another bank overseas. 3, 2016 from the RBI to bank executives warned of "a recent incident involving attempted unauthorized transfer of funds from the nostro account factory direct sale wall art vintage brass flower relief sculpture for home decoration of a bank"."Representatives of Modi, the jeweller, would spend hours in the office, sometimes eating lunch there, two employees at the branch said.

The RBI asked the top management of Indian banks to not only ensure that appropriate controls were in place, but also to reconcile their nostro account transactions – that is, to check that they matched their banks’ internal records.The chief executive officer of SWIFT from 1992 until 2007, Leonard Schrank, said: "I can’t imagine not incorporating SWIFT payments as part of overall reconciliation.The bank’s cornerstone internal, or concurrent auditors, are expected to run daily checks on all SWIFT transactions, according to RBI officials. Both are currently outside the country and have denied the allegations.Several Indian state-run banks had followed a "decentralized set up for SWIFT", meaning that multiple branches and, as a result, "significantly higher number of users" had access to sending money across the global network.

But a lot more needs to be done. With agriculture becoming more mechanised, farm jobs are reducing but the manufacturing sector has not grown sufficiently to absorb all the men who are displaced from farming.But India bucks the trend. But overall, academics are increasingly acknowledging a bitter truth, i. These will achieve true success only if women, half of India’s potential work force, are part of them.4 per cent for China.6 per cent and 70. Recently, the Rajasthan government — led by a woman — fixed minimum wages for domestic help and set limits to their working hours.There need to be financial incentives for employers who provide access to child care facilities.4 per cent in 2011.The National Sample Survey Office says female LFPR in rural areas fell 12-14 percentage points between 2004-05 and 2010-11 — a very sharp decline.

From January this year, the rate for an entire day’s (defined as eight hours) chores — including cooking, washing, baby sitting and other work — has been fixed at a minimum of `5,642 per month.This worrying picture is reaffirmed by a study done the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog).A recent report by World Bank argues that the reason for the worrying decline is a "jobs deficit". There are various financial training and mentoring programmes that help women entrepreneurs write business plans and seek funds from banks and venture capitalists.e.Economists and sociologists have long sparred over the reasons for the withdrawal of Indian women from the labour force. The study notes that poor education among rural women acts as a barrier to smooth inter-sectoral labour mobility. This applies to women who have jobs, are self-employed, as well as those engaged in agricultural activities. So dear finance minister, do remember: Parity and prosperity can go together. But, sadly, most women are only able to find marginal work in the informal economy, with low wages and little or no job security. Most women in India traditionally worked in agriculture.In most countries, as agricultural jobs shrunk, men moved to the manufacturing sector and women to the service sector.

The forthcoming Budget should provide more fiscal incentives to industries and regions that increase job opportunities for women. This, in turn, improves the rates of primary school enrolment, retention and performance. Affordable child care facilities release female siblings from child care responsibilities. Each of these need resources if it is not to be empty talk. It ranked 120 among 131 countries surveyed by the International Labour Organisation in 2013. How can the finance ministry help It is no secret that India has one of the lowest female participation rates in the world. chatterjee@gmail. Nearly 69 per cent of rural women are either illiterate or have been educated only up to the primary level.The writer focuses on development issues in India and emerging economies.

She can be reached at patralekha.So what should be done How can the Budget help The Modi government has promised new schemes to encourage women entrepreneurs as part of Start-up India. In case of overtime, employers will have to pay workers double the minimum fixed wage per hour for each hour. The proportion of working women in urban areas shot up from 11. Equally necessary are fiscal incentives for support systems that can make this happen.One of the fastest-growing sectors for urban working women in India has been domestic work. There are many explanations like rising family incomes.com. Other states need to follow suit, but have not done so yet. Tellingly, the corresponding figure for women in Bangladesh was 60. there just aren’t enough suitable job opportunities for the vast majority of women in this country.9 per cent in 2001 to 15. India’s mobile crèches, most of them located at construction sites, are small-scale day care facilities that provide services to female construction workers with children. In 2014, only 28.If February comes, can high-decibel talk about green shoots of the economy and the growth story be far behind In the Budget season an outpouring of suggestions rents the air.

Then there is the issue of underestimation.India has transitioned to a $2 trillion economy in the past two decades without creating adequate and secure jobs for its large, mostly unskilled labour force.What is more worrying is that female labour force participation rates (LFPR) in India have been declining for several years now.The good news is that many young women among the better-educated in urban India are looking to enter the workforce in large numbers. So they crowd the service sector, traditionally a female terrain. These have many benefits: Decreased absenteeism and if women don’t have to constantly worry about childcare, their productivity is likely to rise. This makes it tougher for women, especially those with little education or skills, to get formal sector service jobs. But the number of farming jobs has been shrinking without a commensurate increase in other employment opportunities.

But in all the gross domestic product talk, one critical issue typically gets missed out — one sure way to boost India’s GDP is to reverse the shocking decline in the female work participation rate in the country. Even within South Asia, it is in sixth position among eight countries, better than Pakistan and Afghanistan, but worse than Bangladesh. And there have been some positive signs.6 per cent of Indian women in the 15-64 age group were part of the labour force, according to the World Bank. Now, we have the Make in India campaign and Skill India Mission. One of the most critical policy intervention needed is affordable childcare.Economists like Vinoj Abraham say that creating work opportunities alone will not lead to more women in the workforce — policy interventions need to address a variety of issues, including improving women’s access to education and skills training, promoting affordable childcare to ease the burden of domestic duties, enhancing safety for women on the streets and in work places. Such schemes need to be expanded to a grand scale and well beyond construction sites.